154 SEA AND LAND 



For a long time after sea-going ships were invented, they 

 were of small size ; they all ap[)car to have been without keels 

 and to ha\e been propelled by oars, with onl\' an occasional 

 use of sails. Craft of this sort were to a certain extent inde- 

 pendent of harbors, or at least needed them only as landing- 

 places, for it was a common custom to drag them on their flat 

 bottoms up the surface of any smooth beach. In other words, 

 they preserved the type of rovvboats such as are normally 

 used on inland waters. It was not until about two thousand 

 years ago, when the use of ships for war purposes on the 

 Mediterranean led to a great increase of their size, that 

 vessels lost tlieir amphibious character, became permanent 

 denizens of the sea, and had to be sheltered in good harbors 

 when they lay near land. After the invention of the keel, 

 merchant ships gradually abandoned the use of oars for 

 propulsion ; they w^ere increased in size, and so in time all 

 commercial craft came to require the protection of harbors 

 in receiving or discharging cargoes. During the last century 

 this enlargement of vessels has gone forward with exceeding 

 ra{)idity, so that at the present time the average tonnage of 

 sea-eoine ships is at least fivefold as orreat as it was a hundred 

 years ago. 



The maritime spirit of the different peoples that resort to 

 the sea was developed and determined in the ages when 

 vessels had not passed beyond the stage of boats of small 

 size. Their first lessons in seamanship seem to have been 

 acquired in tolerably sheltered waters where bays or islands 

 favored tentative experiments in navigation. Wherever any 

 of the shores of the Old World abound in inlets or are beset 

 with islands, if the country was inhabited at an early day 

 by people capable of advance in the ways of life, we al- 



